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Bahrain’s Sunni Rulers Revoke Citizenship of Top Shiite Cleric
Bahrain’s Sunni Rulers Revoke Citizenship of Top Shiite Cleric
Rick Gladstone, The New York Times
20 June 2016
Image: Shiite clerics in the village of Diraz, west of Manama, Bahrain, protested on Monday the revocation of the citizenship of a top cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim. CreditMohammed Al-Shaikh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Escalating a crackdown on political opposition, the Sunni monarchy inBahrain said Monday that it had revoked the citizenship of a top cleric who is regarded as the spiritual voice of the country’s Shiite majority.
Rights activists and other critics said the move against the cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, is likely to further inflame divisions in Bahrain, a tiny Persian Gulf kingdom that is home to the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet and is an important American ally.
Bahrain has been periodically roiled by protests seeking more democracy since the Arab Spring uprisings five years ago, and its police and security agencies have a reputation for using disproportionate force. Ayatollah Qassim has been an outspoken critic of the government’s tactics.
The Interior Ministry, in a statement carried by Bahrain’s official news agency, said that Ayatollah Qassim, through sermons and religious edicts, had fomented sectarianism, collected funds unlawfully and “exploited the religious pulpit for political purposes to serve foreign interests.”
Accordingly, the statement said, “The cabinet has issued a decision to revoke the citizenship of Isa Qassim.”
The ministry did not make clear what was meant by “foreign interests,” but the phrase was assumed to refer to Iran, the Shiite-majority power that competes with Sunni-led Saudi Arabia for influence in the region.
The statement also did not specify what would happen to Ayatollah Qassim, who preaches from a mosque in the village of Diraz near Manama, the capital. The Bahraini authorities have expelled many people after revoking their citizenship.
Under a 2014 amendment to the country’s citizenship law, Bahrainis can lose their citizenship for any actions deemed harmful to the kingdom’s national interests.
The move against Ayatollah Qassim was the latest in a series of increasingly tough measures taken by the authorities in the past few weeks to neutralize their perceived political adversaries.
On June 14, the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs suspended all activities by Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, Bahrain’s leading Shiite opposition group, which had helped lead pro-democracy demonstrations in the country since 2011.
A day earlier, a leading Bahraini rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, was arrestedat his home. In early June, another prominent dissident, Zainab al-Khawaja, fled to Denmark just days after she was released from prison with her infant son, a punishment that had earned international outrage.
Ms. Khawaja, a dual citizen of Denmark and Bahrain, said she had been warned by the Danish Embassy that she could be rearrested and separated from her child if she did not leave.
Nicholas McGeehan, the Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the decision to revoke Ayatollah Qassim’s citizenship “takes Bahrain into the darkest days it has seen since the antigovernment protests and violent crackdown of 2011.”
“The Bahraini authorities are shutting the door on political reform, while simultaneously stoking dissent,” Mr. McGeehan said in an emailed statement.
Iran, which has long expressed contempt for Bahrain’s ruling Al-Khalifa family, said the removal of Ayatollah Qassim’s citizenship could be a catalyst for a strengthened uprising. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, said in awarning reported by Iran’s Fars News Agency that if the Bahraini authorities bothered Ayatollah Qassim they risked “dire repercussions, including armed struggle by people and overthrow of the Al-Khalifa dynasty.”
The Obama administration, which has become increasingly irritated by the Bahraini authorities, said it was alarmed by the revocation of Ayatollah Qassim’s citizenship.
“Above all, we worry that this case, as well as other recent actions by the government, will further divert Bahrainis from the path of reform and reconciliation,” John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said in an online statement.
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© 2016, The New York Times
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